Disclaimer: All belongs to the great and powerful Mouse.

A/N: Here's chapter twenty-six! Again, I am so sorry for the delay, but things are way more than hectic right now. I know this one is a little short, but I figured better shorter than nothing... besides I don't want you all coming after me with pitch forks, torches, and stalks of broccoli! (I'm looking at you ErinKenobi2893) On to the story. Enjoy!

A/N 2: Italics indicate emphasis, visions, personal thoughts and flashbacks. Context should illustrate which device is being used. / / indicates mindspeak.

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Airmac: I'm so happy to know you are still reading and I am trying to get these updates out as soon as possible! Oh and one more thing... CONGRATULATIONS! You are my 50th review. Punch and pie for all!

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Chapter 26 – Falling from High Places

Day 154

It was not a sound or movement that awakened her. It was a feeling, a rather powerful feeling that battered against her sensitive and poorly shielded empathic receptors. Lantis squeezed her eyes shut as her small furry fingers press against her temples. It took several deep breaths before she had reinforced her meager empathic shields (so similar to and yet so different from her normal shields) enough that she could think clearly. She opened her eyes and trained her focus to the emotions that roused her from sleep. Someone nearby is quite happy, but it was not a joyous or ebullient sort of giddiness. No, this was far more... self-centered and conceited. This person was smug.

The young felinoid slid silently out of bed and padded softly to her door. There Lantis paused a moment to reach out with the Force to scan the room beyond. Her extended senses only confirmed her suspicions. With only a blush of trepidation she opened the door, wrapped the Force tightly around her and stepped into the common room. She stalked slowly and silently through the room like a creeping fog determined not to alert the room's other occupant. Her efforts were rewarded when she found she was able to approach the young man at the room's terminal without his being aware. She pulled up behind him now only a meter away. At this distance she could just begin to make out what was on the screen. Her eyes widen and a gasp escaped her short muzzle before she could stifle it. Immediately the screen went dark and Adaen jumped out of his seat his expression darker than a night on Dagobah.

"What do you think you're doing? Were you spying on me?" he snapped. Lantis wanted to snap herself at his tone, but instead she took a half second to calm herself as her master would want her to.

"Were you engaged in some activity where I would need to spy on you?" she asked serenely. Her demeanor only served to infuriate the other teen more, but Lantis didn't know how else to proceed so she continued relying on her instincts and her thoughts of what her master would do. "What were you doing, Adaen?"

"I was minding my business," he replied angrily, his fist clenched at his sides. "I suggest you do the same. Curiosity has been known to kill felinoids, you know," he finished with a smirk. Lantis's thin lips curled into a snarl reflexively.

"Are you threatening me?"

"Now would I do something like that?" Adaen asked smugly, his previous ire replaced by casual malevolence. "I have nothing to fear from you."

"Perhaps not, but I could wake Master Jinn and I'm sure he could conjure sufficient reason for you to fear him," Lantis spat back. Adaen shrugged.

"Wake him I don't care. I saved Obi-Wan, remember," he said stepping closer to the felinoid. He stopped just inches away from her face. "No Jedi would dare touch me now," he whispered and then suddenly Lantis felt a pressure on her neck. Her throat constricted violently cutting of her supply of air. She looked at Adaen with wide eyes, but he only continued to smirk at her; his eyes gleaming at her struggles. Then as quickly as it had closed her throat was open again and Lantis found herself gasping and gulping for air. Adaen stepped back as he watched the padawan fight to return to normal breathing. Finally, Lantis was able to regain control of her respiration and she looked at the boy before her through narrowed eyes.

"You're wrong," she rasped. "My Master, Master Jinn, the other masters... they will stop you. I will stop you."

"Yes, you've done a marvelous job of it so far," he replied coolly. "Don't get in my way again, little felinoid or I will put you down," he added then he turned and reclaimed his normal position on the couch as if preparing for bed. Lantis stood there silently for several minutes, one hand still clasping her neck. Finally, she too returned to her bed, closing and locking the door behind her. The young Jedi sat heavily on her bed as she tried to shift through her jumble of thoughts. That had not gone as she had planned and the boy had used the Force against her. He had nearly killed her! On the other hand she had seen what he was doing and though it didn't make any sense now with a little research... Lantis shook her head. Tonight was too close. If her master knew what just happened, well he would probably kill her himself. Lantis instinctively reached out for the bond she shared with her master, but managed to stop herself before she accessed it. If she talked to her master now he would come to her and the ruse would be blown. No, she would wait and speak to Master Jinn first... after she did a little research of her own. With a plan now solidly in hand, Lantis laid back on her pillow and closed her eyes, but sleep didn't come easily as her thoughts traveled back to Adaen's attack and what she felt from him...

Day 155

"Master Jinn?"

"Yes, Lantis?" Qui-Gon answered without opening his eyes. When he heard no further response he surfaced completely from his light meditation and opened his eyes to find his best friend's padawan standing nervously before him. He tilted his head to the side and gave the girl a warm smile. The gesture caused her to ease slightly, but the master could plainly feel the tension rolling off the young Jedi in waves through the Force.

"Something troubles you," the master offered and the young felinoid nodded.

"Umm...," she started, hesitatingly. "Where... where are Obi-Wan and Adaen?"

"They've gone to the refectory to fetch latemeal for us," Qui-Gon answered then he frowned. "Does this have to do with them? Did something happen?" he asked surprised he was able to keep most of his worry out of his voice. When the padawan nodded, Qui-Gon rose to his feet and brought her over to the couch. They sat side by side, but the master turned slightly so he could better face the youth beside him.

"Tell me," he ordered gently and Lantis could already sense a wisp of worry from the master despite his advanced shielding. It was then she realized she could not tell him the truth, at least not all of it. She took a deep breath.

"Last night, I woke up and came into the common room... I, um... wanted some water," she lied. Qui-Gon could sense her dissemblance, but chose not to speak on it now as he could also sense real distress coming off the girl. He remained quiet, waiting patiently for the padawan to continue.

"I saw Adaen at the terminal," she said pointing to the room's rear console. "I tried to sneak up on him to get a look at what he was viewing."

"Did he sense you?" the master interrupted.

"Yes, and he was not too happy to find me there," Lantis answered, her gaze dropping to examine her hands.

"What did he do, Padawan? Did he hurt you?" Qui-Gon asked and again Lantis could not bring herself to speak the truth.

"No, Master Jinn, but... he did threaten me. He said that curiosity has been known to... kill felinoids and that he wasn't afraid of me. I told him I could wake you and that I bet he was afraid of you," she said smiling ruefully, but then her somber expression returned. "But he said he wasn't afraid of you or any Jedi."

"Did he say why?" Qui-Gon asked. Lantis finally looked the dark haired master in his eyes.

"He said he's the one that saved Obi-Wan. No Jedi would dare touch him now."

Day 156

"This was a great idea Obi. I was getting so tired of just studying and doing katas," Lantis said as she indulged in a long and languorous stretch. Obi-Wan grined at his friend and fellow padawan.

"Yeah, I love working out in here. When I do my aerials it feels like... like I'm flying," he answered. Lantis responded with a knowing nod. Adaen, who was sitting nearby on a bench, snorted. It did not go unnoticed.

"Oh, come on Adaen," Obi-Wan pleaded as he finished his warm up. "Join us. You don't have to do anything fancy and we won't let you fall."

"What about you?" the Rattatki teen asked sweetly. "What if you fall?"

Obi-Wan laughed and smiled at his friend.

"Well, I don't fall... often," he grinned, "and Lantis, well she never falls."

Lantis answered his statement with a toothy grin and then bounded up the nearest set of bars. Obi-Wan immediately followed her leaving Adaen alone with their things.

"We'll just see about that then, won't we..."

Knowing that something like this would happen did little to ease the knotted tension growing inside Vresh's chest that threatened to strangle his heart and end his life mid-sprint as he barreled down the wide corridors of the Temple in a very un-Jedi like manner. In his quarters the master felt a sudden spike of surprise, fear, and then pain across his bond with his padawan, but now... now the bond was quiet; the warm spark that was his padawan now only a muffled, muted presence in his mind. Even as he raced through the halls he reached out for his apprentice. He reached out, but was answered with silence. Not a void, but an eerie quiet that somehow was even more disquieting than a total lack ever could have been. The master's anxiety ramped up several notches and his graceful gait became a Force enhanced dash into the Temple's main gymnasium. Qui-Gon was on his heels as the two masters entered into the large room quickly surveying the scene around them. Several padawans and knights stood nearby, but most were like statues, unmoving, faces frozen in various degrees of shock. Only the small gathering near the center of the room seemed capable of movement. Vresh made his way to that cluster, a small gasp escaping his thin lips as he took in the small and twisted body before him. Beside a Twi'lek knight he didn't recognize laid his apprentice. She was still save for the shallow rise and fall of her chest marking some degree of respiration, but for all the comfort that observation gave him the awkward angle of her right leg and the slowly increasing pool of blood ringing around her head pouring from a deep laceration caused unbound panic to race again through his heart.

"Call for a healer..." the stricken master ordered as he carefully cradled his apprentice's head in his lap mindless of the blood now leaking on to his tunics. Qui-Gon nodded at his own padawan who stood nearby, his face pale and drawn in barely suppressed panic. Beside him stands Adaen, his expression was unreadable yet Qui-Gon found it unnerving just the same. The long haired master turned his gaze to the Twi'lek knight who shifted uncomfortably beside his friend.

"I have. They should be here any moment," he answered quietly. Vresh nodded his gaze still fixed upon the slack face between his large hands. Qui-Gon watched as the master closed his eyes and dumped healing energy into the padawan heedless of the toll sustaining such levels would have on his own body and life force. He placed a hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Easy," he whispered and he could sense that Vresh had heard him, but the master did not pull back from the energy he was still pouring desperately into the small frame below him. Qui-Gon was about to admonish his friend again when Lantis began to stir ever so slightly. Vresh opened his eyes and gazed lovingly if not worriedly at his padawan who eyes were merely slits behind half closed lids.

"Mmm...aster..."

"Ssshh, it's alright, Padawan," Vresh cooed. Peripherally he could hear the doors to the gym slide open and the soft patter of booted feet cross hurriedly to their location, but that awareness was little more than background noise to the singular focus his padawan held for him.

"Nnnooo..." the felinoid whispered, "Mmmasster... please..."

"Easy child," Master Songe said as he knelt beside the young Jedi. He placed a hand on Lantis's head and closed his eyes inventorying her injuries through the Force even as he spoke to the group around him. "What happened here?"

"She was on the tertiary bars when she... fell," the Twi'lek answered as Songe opened his eyes wide in alarm. Whether the knight's words or the healer's findings were the cause was unknown to Vresh, but the concern that flared in the Force around them was both intense and unmistakable.

"Hover sled, now," the master healer barked over his shoulder and two other healers, senior padawans, brought the requested equipment over. Songe looked to Vresh.

"Master Tivi, we must get her to the ward immediately. You must let go," Songe said firmly, but not unkindly. Vresh nodded, but did not release his apprentice who was still starring at him through mostly closed lids.

"Master Tivi," the master healer repeated. When he did not get a response Qui-Gon squeezed the shoulder still under his hand.

"V," he pleaded softly. "She needs to go."

"Yes," he whispered in reply as he finally allowed the trio of healers to lift the child from his arms and place her on the floating stretcher nearby. Songe checked a few things before he gave the instruction to begin moving her, but before any of the party took a single step Lantis's voice called out again.

"Mmmaster!" she yelled albeit weakly. Vresh was instantly by her side, her small paw held tightly between his own.

"It's alright, Lani, I'm here."

"Nooo," she insisted, "I know... I know..."

"Quiet now, Padawan," Vresh answered as he gave a nod to Songe and the group began to move out of the gym and to the ward, but still Lantis demanded to be heard.

"Master... please... hhh-hear me..."

"What, Lani? What is it?"

"... I... know..."

"You know? What do you know?" Vresh asked, but his questions went unanswered as Lantis slipped away into unconsciousness taking the precious knowledge with her.